


Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now

by aww_clint_no



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Hot Toys Action Figures, M/M, Supernatural Elements, tw: minor public humiliation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-30
Updated: 2014-12-30
Packaged: 2018-03-04 07:26:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2986754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aww_clint_no/pseuds/aww_clint_no
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phil Coulson's always off-balance these days, and he's always one step behind in this brave new universe of supernatural forces and alien races.  His coping mechanism, as always, is cold logic and strict adherence to procedure.</p><p>This new development though, occurring in the vicinity of his bookshelf, is forcing him to acknowledge some deeply repressed feelings, and soon the situation spirals completely out of his control.</p><p>Inspired by <a href="http://faeleverte.tumblr.com">faeleverte's</a> inappropriate action figures posts on tumblr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now

**Author's Note:**

> Extra points for those who get the reference in the title.
> 
>  
> 
> [This was the post that inspired me.](http://faeleverte.tumblr.com/post/97592272094/selana1505-ralkana-faeleverte-gracious)

The Avengers Tower was, like many skyscrapers and high-rises, eerily quiet on the inside when all activities have ceased for the day.  Sleeping in Avengers Tower was even worse, for though Phil Coulson had spent many months and years hibernating in flying warships, underground bunkers and the like, as he lay in bed the complete and utter silence never failed to prompt the thought of lying in a tomb, left to rot for all eternity.  Stark, as expected, had furnished Phil’s room with unnecessarily grand baroque furniture, blithely insisting that a ‘classy man of distinguishing tastes deserves an elegant bedroom to match’.  Given that Stark had never ever come within ten miles of those qualifiers in his lifetime, Phil’s room at the Tower was one hundred-percent teak, mahogany and gold filigrees.

Laid in a California King, surrounded by heavy hardwood, Phil envisaged himself as the only soft, squishy, very human living thing in the room.  With no one else in bed - it hadn’t been that way for almost a decade - he had no warmth or support to draw from.  Without even the sounds of traffic, or a gentle breeze, to remind him that life and nature was still going on outside, he felt outnumbered and defeated by the dresser, the wardrobe, the four poster bed, the loveseat, all things so massive and immovable that they would remain exactly in place long after he was dead for good.

He had only come back to life a few months prior, his claim to being a lifeform tenuous at best. He was still on leave for physical therapy and counselling, and though the medical reports claimed he was recovering strongly, on some nights, when even JARVIS couldn’t work out what Phil’s body wanted, he would huddle up under the comforter struggling to generate enough body heat to keep himself warm.  Sometimes, he awoke from a restless sleep, with the sensation of a phantom weight over his wrists, ankles, and forehead, and found himself unable to shift the comforter aside. On those nights, he wondered if there was any point in being resurrected if he was so weak that he couldn’t fight off the oppressive silence of a room. 

He’d bought a white noise machine once, but when he pulled the covers over and tried to relax in bed, the natural sounds were so consciously unnatural that he spent three hours quietly mourning his disconnection with the world.

It was upon this silent backdrop that Phil heard something odd, as he lay in bed at one in the morning, just as he was ready to drop off.

Very light, muffled tapping, coming from the vicinity of his left.

The tapping stopped.

Then, an even softer sound of plastic scuffing, a rhythmic squeaking.

It went on for minutes.

It sounded like it was coming from inside the room _._   _What could possibly be making those noises?_

With a sigh, Phil relented and turned on his bedside lamp.  He looked to his left, towards the bookcase, and though it was a good twenty feet away - _Goddamnit, Stark, I never asked for a huge fucking bedroom_ \- now he was certain the noises were coming from the shelves.

He slid out of bed, and padded towards the bookcase, only to freeze in horror when he finally saw what was happening.

Little Agent Coulson, the action figure, was presently in a sensual make-out session with Little Hawkeye, another action figure.  And they looked like they were enjoying themselves, immutable brooding faces notwithstanding.

Little Phil had one arm crooked to rest his hand on Hawkeye’s waist, the other arm on the ball of his shoulder, as they kissed, the slide of closed plastic lips making scuffing sounds.  It really was something else, watching the most realistic one-tenth scale versions of Clint and himself doing something he’d thought about all the time.

And Big Phil didn’t quite know what to think about that.

His first thought was whether this was going to be a part of his life now, another  adjustment to his worldview that he would have to accept quickly and quietly, as was expected of a high-ranking agent with access to secret intelligence.  Animated figurines? Yeah, why not.

His second thought was that from a third-person standpoint, he and Clint couldn’t be more physically mismatched in an intimate situation, that was being made very clear to him right now.  Phil leaned forward to spectate the action from less than a foot away.

 Though the two figures were made to the same one-foot height, Little Phil was rather dull within his dark grey suit, stiff and restricted in a pale blue shirt and very proper tie with a Windsor knot; he looked practically delicate next to Little Hawkeye in his combat gear, whose bulging arms were curved around Little Phil’s waist, hands lightly curled in air behind the back - and that made Phil look even smaller.  And not to mention all the zippers and buckles and _kneepads_ on Hawkeye’s suit, which brought to mind restraints, holding back pure physicality and sexuality.  There was nothing raw about Little Phil, or Big Phil by implication.

And yet, he knew he was very possibly insane for overthinking what he was seeing, but Little Phil and Little Hawkeye were currently staring straight into each other’s eyes - not that they could they could do anything else but stare - and Little Phil had his hands resting on the sides of Little Hawkeye’s face.  And in that moment, their stern scowls were immutable, and yet transformed into something else entirely; they became faces of intense passion, something Phil could never quite visualize Clint directing at him, in his mind’s eye, but he could see it now.  It was beautiful.

It pulled at his chest, just to see his his deepest secret physically made manifest, so close he could touch it, and yet still completely out of his reach.  If this was magic - who was he kidding, it had to be, in this day and age - magic that somehow drew from his thoughts and wishes for nefarious purposes or for mischief, there was no logical reason to expect that this would cause any change in his relationship between Clint and himself.  

Lest his thoughts strayed to wishing that some of this magical amorous aura would spread to the real object of his affection, Phil also reminded himself, as the figurines continued to gently discover each other, that the last thing Clint needed was another violation of his free will.

Little Phil angled his head and slowly lowered his mouth to Little Hawkeye’s, but Phil didn’t actually see the point of contact because his vision was blurring and he was breathing heavily in the oppressive silence; he mashed the heels of his palm into his eyes, before he ever needed to admit _I cried over two action figures in my bedroom_.

When he gathered himself, Little Phil and Little Hawkeye were laying side by side facing each other, content to jerkily stroke each other and occasionally tap faces.  Little Cap and Little Bucky stand rigidly upright next to their left,  the Little Howling Commandos to their right, defiantly staring ahead out towards the room as if pledging to stand guard over the two lovers.

It was all a bit much for Big Phil to deal with in one night, so he grabbed the pillow and duvet, and took it outside to the couch, closing the door behind him.

 

The next morning, Phil awakened, disoriented for a few moments, before he remembered the insanity of the previous night.  He was not a man to delay facing difficult situations, if this could be considered one, so he got up and walked back into the bedroom.

The two figures were still laying down facing each other, but they were no longer moving.  Phil hesitated to replace them on their stands; on the one hand, if he left them as they were and someone walked in - he couldn’t think of a reason why anybody would want to be in his bedroom barring an emergency - it was going to look highly incriminating for his hidden infatuation.  On the other hand, he didn’t want to touch and handle them, because they’d lived. They’d done human things, things he would admit to being jealous of.

He dismissed the thought as ridiculous and rearranged them into their previous positions.  Forget potentially messing with magic-infused plastic figures, a humiliating revelation of his unrequited crush would definitely be the worst thing to happen.

 

Contrary to expectations, life in the Avengers Tower is generally mundane, in between the catastrophic city-flattening battles.  Even superheroes yearn to recover their equilibrium in an average human existence.

Though Banner and Stark are geniuses with unlimited cash, this is the 21st Century, not the Age of Enlightenment, and scientific progress is highly iterative, even with the help of thousands of scientists working around the world.  Phil has a laundry list of positive and negative assessments for Stark’s personality, but his major criticism is with Stark’s solitary approach, which has meant progress for his personal scientific goals, that are sometimes disconnected from urgent global objectives.  It also means that months can go by without any update from the Science Bros, because there is only so much ingenuity that can come from two humans, who also seem immune to reading the work of other researchers.  To Phil, this seems like an unnecessary waste of human resources for the sake of pride, though Stark would insist the opposite.

“I know I’m not the greatest. It’s not ego. But I don’t care what anyone else thinks. I don’t need a membership from IEEE to feel all warm and special. Civilisation’s a beast that moves very slowly. Too slowly for me. I’m not a nihilist, Agent Agent; my enlightened self-interest is to the benefit of you and your fellow Agent Agents.  

“And I’m not a scientist, I’m an inventor. An innovator. An inven-innovator.  An inven-innovator who is a weapons technology consultant for SHIELD. Now, can you say, ‘I’m sorry for calling you an egotist, Mr Stark sir?’”

Whatever the case, Stark’s inven-innovating only caused a commotion about three times a year.  Meanwhile, Natasha seemed content to indulge her domestic side, if only to fashion eye-searingly painful arts and crafts out of the most horrendous discoveries at the English Town flea market in NJ.  Rogers spends half of his time on Youtube, watching almost anything and everything - he’s become a connoisseur of British  comedy, sketch and serial, which makes Phil’s heart suffer tiny fireworks because _yes, this was his obsession too, back when he was a young recruit struggling to reconcile SHIELD’s military-industrial complex with their exultations of peacekeeping_.

Thor does not seek an average human existence - he is a god, he knows it, he embodies it, he’s comfortable with it - and he has official Thunder God duties to see to, so he is not so often around.  But it’s Clint’s presence in the Tower, Clint at his most domestic, that makes Phil ache for a private life shared with him, where his warmth and affection is Phil’s, and Phil’s alone to witness.

Clint tends to lounge around like the place is a dorm room, rather than a multi-million dollar phallic monument to Stark’s ego.  He has taken to wearing of late a very soft-looking grey hoodie with similarly worn black sweatpants; the SHIELD logo has long since washed off the both of them, and only flecks of the ‘C’ in ‘SHIELD Academy’ are still clinging to the fabric of the grey cotton.  In the mornings, Clint shuffles in to the kitchen, bleary-eyed and yawning, charmingly tousled blond hair, and he always gives Phil a sleepy grin and a, ”Mornin’, Phil” before he pads over to the drip coffee machine.  

(On one morning, Stark had stormed into the living room area, clutching a Mr Coffee contraption at arm’s length in disgust, and demanded to know who had defiled his kitchen with cheap junk.  Clint simply shrugged and replied, “Makes the best coffee in this place,” and sat back just to watch Stark’s head explode.  The machine now has ‘BARTON’ stuck on it with label tape. He wasn’t dumb enough to label it ‘CLINT’, knowing Stark’s level of humour.)

Phil wanted—he wanted to drag Clint to bed, and just hold him, melt into a Clint Barton with his hard edges worn away, and never ever leave. He’d never considered himself particularly interested in having a home life, separated from his work, with a wife or husband, children and pets.  But this version of domesticity, he had coveted from day one in Avengers Tower, when Clint handed him a plate of pancakes with a sweet smile and said, “Welcome home, sir.”

 

All of this was to say, that life in the Tower was like a normal, average household.  With superheroes.  And the day after Phil’s collectables decided to act out his deepest fantasies, the household continued as normal.

A quick call to Sitwell revealed no reports of unusual magical activity worldwide, overnight.  There were no electromagnetic disturbances recorded in New York, and none of the standing threats to SHIELD by crazed basement scientists seemed to apply; there was nothing, as if a highly localized region of insanity tore open within the vicinity of his bookshelf, and collapsed into nothing by morning.

“Y’know, Coulson, a house full of superheroes is probably going to be batshit crazy, without the aid of magic.”

“You’d know, what with your zero access to said superheroes.”

Sitwell snorted.  “Yeah yeah, so you’re hot shit, no one gives a fuck, asshole.”

“No one but you, and that’s why I love you, sweetheart.”

“Love you too, honeybuns,” Sitwell smacked a kiss and hung up.

 

The next step was to ask his only direct contact in Asgard, which would be Thor.  While he would have preferred none of this to have happened at all, he had hoped something would ping on SHIELD’s intel, since he would have been able to at least slap a big old ‘Level 7 only’ sticker on the file and ‘misplace’ it under one of the many misfiled milk-run missions; SHIELD’s fileserver was not as meticulous as upper management thought it was.

It wasn’t that he thought Thor would be insensitive; no, Thor is a major god, and a god with wisdom and experience from millennia of existence.  Phil feared that if he were to express his predicament, Thor would use a billionth of that wisdom and come to a conclusion very different to his own, something undoubtedly very mature and enlightened and something Phil wanted nothing to do with. Maybe if the the magicking was limited to the figurines, he could just live with it, maybe hide them somewhere - though it would hurt to secrete them in a box when they deserved better treatment, because he wasn’t ashamed of Little Phil and Little Hawkeye’s grand romance, honestly he wasn’t.

It was just that this could all be a storm in a teacup, really.  A single moment of hysteria, the result of an overworked brain and a lonely depressed soul, which was probably a one-off and didn’t need Thor’s input and was not going to ever happen again.

Later that night, it happened again.

It appeared that Little Phil and Little Hawkeye were done with slow and gentle, and were jonesing for slow and sexy.  Little Phil was jammed in the corner of the shelf, arms raised, head turned to the side and still staring resolutely ahead; Hawkeye was pressed against him, pinning his arms to the walls and kissing the side of his neck.  Then, Hawkeye slid down to his knees, and Little Phil dropped his hands to cradle the back of Hawkeye’s head.

Phil yanked a bedsheet out of the mahogany dresser, threw it over the bookcase, and stomped out to the couch.

 

“If you wish to discuss your matter, we should do so in privacy—“

“Your place would be ideal,” Phil interrupted.

Which was how Phil found himself in the middle of an IKEA explosion, a mishmash of particle board and ABS plastic in solid bold colours.  At Thor’s insistence, he moved to sit on the royal blue cotton-upholstered couch, and consciously laid his hands on his knees as he waited for Thor to work through his hosting duties.

“Stark decided to decorate your place with irony, I see,” Phil said.

“It is an Iron Man’s way, certainly,” Thor replied with an amused smirk.  He spawned a mug of green tea in his hands, and set it down on the hideous green-and-white-swirled ceramic coaster in front of him.  “Though I do not mind the furniture, and I have said so.  His disappointment was a bonus.”

“You don’t mind this?” Phil said, looking around the living room.  “It’s pretty…basic, I would have thought you would have preferred something, uh—“

“More glorious?” Thor replied, with a knowing smile.  He sat down on the connecting chaise, his own mug of green tea in hand.  “When you really, truly, want for nothing, there is nothing you want.”  He took a sip.  “Asgard has some of the finest architecture and furniture design known to, well, gods.  I can appreciate its artistry.  But I don’t covet it.  That would be entirely a waste of my time.”

“Hmm,” Phil replied.  He sipped his tea, and held back his thoughts about that.  _I may not want, but I know what I don’t want, and that’s three tons of hardwood in a bedroom._

They spent a minute in silence, looking down at the coffee table.

“I have these action figures on my bookshelf,” Phil began.  He could feel Thor’s eyes on him, but he kept his own eyes down.

“A few nights ago, some of the figures started to move.”

Thor’s face sobered, and he leaned forward. “Did anything else happen?  Did the figures take up arms?”

“No, so far they have not shown signs of aggression,” Phil replied.  He knew that simply answering Thor’s questions with the minimum required information, and not elaborating, was only denying the inevitable humiliation, but he couldn’t bring himself to blather it all at once.  Let Thor get it out of him.  He’s only three questions away from it anyway.

“That is a good sign, hopefully only a stray bit of magic, not consciously directed towards you.  Any wizard or witch can remove these minor enchantments, and luckily there are many such practitioners nearby.”

Phil gave a non-committal hum.

“There…is a reason to believe it is directed at you? Which figures were they?”

“Hawkeye,” Phil ground out, “and myself.”

Thor sat back, and hummed thoughtfully.  Phil looked to him, and he let Thor’s searching eyes extract the truth.  After an eternity, Thor’s face broke into a knowing smile.

“Does the vision of you and Clint fornicating upset you?”

“Yes!” Phil exclaimed, swiftly turning his body towards Thor, back ramrod straight in indignance.  “Why those two figurines, if it’s not supposed to send a message to me?  And what fucking message is it, Thor? What am I supposed to think?  Is it supposed to humiliate me?  To mock my feelings? To—to—“ _To give me hope?_

“To give you hope?”  Thor replied knowingly.  “If that is all the figures have done so far, it is unlikely to be a threat or warning.  I still think it is stray magic, given that not many people know of your affections for Hawkeye—“

“What do you mean ‘not many’? Who—“

“In that sense, what does it matter if there is a message or not?  What message do _you_ imbue in it?”

“I don’t know,” Phil mumbled, dropping his head in his hands.

Thor gave him a hearty pat on the back.  “You’ll find one, in time.”

 

Upon Phil’s return to his quarters, he was greeted with a cautious sounding JARVIS through the ceiling.

“Excuse the interruption, sir, but you may want to inspect your bedroom,” JARVIS said.  “Your _situation_ may have escalated.”

Stalking towards the bedroom without bothering to thank JARVIS - honestly, why did Stark program an AI to be suggestive and coy - he walked in and saw nothing amiss.  _Of course,_ Phil  groaned, walking over to the bookshelf and yanking the sheet aside, _I swear to God if those two are still at it during the day…_

Gabe, Dum Dum, Cap, blank, blank, Bucky.

“I have kept an eye on them, sir,” JARVIS said, as Phil’s chest tightened and the telltale signs of panic began to manifest.  “They are in the entertainment suite—”

“WHAT?!”  Phil stood up quickly from where he had been keeled over.  Without conscious thought, and breathing heavily, he stormed out the bedroom and headed towards the entrance. “I’ve got to—I’ve got to—“ He stopped in the doorway.  “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

“May I interject with a piece of intel, sir?”  JARVIS said, and Phil was going to snap and ask him—it—them— _what the fuck do you know about ‘intel’, you irritating piece of malignant code_ ,  but he was stopped at the last moment by the thought that this would mean capitulating to Stark’s aggravating behaviour by-proxy.

“And what would that be, JARVIS?” Phil said with the most calm, most menacing smile he could offer.  JARVIS took some time to respond; Phil was consoled to know that even halfway out of a panic attack, he could still make an AI think very carefully about their next words.

“The team has…located the figures, sir, and as such the viable courses of action have narrowed down considerably.”

 _Okay, break down the problem, identify the established facts,_ Phil thought to himself, leaning an arm against the doorframe as he contemplated his options. _They might not be in action right this moment.  There’s still a chance to explain, and if I have to endure Stark’s bullshit, I’ll take the hit._

“Are—are the figures moving?” 

“Yes, sir.”

_Okay, regulate your breathing, work on the best compromise to minimize losses.  Focus on your options.  Option._

_There is only one option._

 

When the elevator doors opened to reveal the entertainment suite, Phil was met with the sight of _all the Avengers_ presently standing in a circle, looking down at something obscured from his viewpoint - who the fuck was he kidding, he knew what it was - and the sounds of whooping and laughter.  As he approached, a cheer of ‘ohhh!’ went up, and he was sure those two little fuckers were doing something outrageous.

Natasha and Rogers were the first to turn away from the show and acknowledge him - Rogers with folded arms, weak smile and raised eyebrows that said there was empathy, but no real practical help was forthcoming; and Natasha with a smirk that said she was looking forward to Phil’s impending meltdown.  Both walked away from the commotion, Rogers to the bar and Natasha towards him, leaning in close to speak into his right ear.

“Deep breaths.  You are an island of calm,”  she said, pausing before teasing, “You have a contingency plan?” 

“Yes, I do,” Phil replied, and Natasha’s words did in fact help him regain his equilibrium; he could feel his professional face settle over him.  At the now-broken circle, Banner had his brows furrowed in…confusion, deep thought, or appalment, Phil couldn’t tell.  “The situation will be brought under control.”

“I’m sure it will, eventually” she said. “You’ll get your desired outcome.”

Phil narrowed his eyes at Natasha.  “I think you and I differ on the definition of ‘desired’.”

“We don’t,” she replied bluntly.  “You talk about compromised objectives, and disaster management, but I _know_.”

Phil looked back at the circle.  It was now clear that all the commotion was just from Stark’s exuberance; Thor was smiling fondly at the display, and Clint, well his back was visible to Phil, but he was standing stock still, arms folded.

“The best thing?  It is all out of your control now, unless you do something monumentally stupid, and you won’t be doing that now, will you, Level Seven Agent Phil Coulson?”

Phil gave a crooked smile.  “I can’t promise that right now.”

Natasha pulled away slightly to look at Phil in surprise.  “You _really_ don’t have a contingency plan.”

“I have a plan.  _A_ plan.  I know, I’ve only got one option, whether it’s monumentally stupid or not is up for debate.”

At that, Natasha made an exaggerated wink and slapped his ass.  “Go get him, tiger.”

Phil calmly made his way towards the circle.  As he approached from the left, he could see what his little exhibitionists had decided was appropriate behaviour, and _oh my God, just fucking end me now…_

Little Hawkeye was positioned on all fours on the glass coffee table, pants pulled just below the ass but otherwise clothed - and with the quiver still attached to his back, _why_ \- and Little Phil, also fully suited, was fucking the life out of him from behind.  Little Hawkeye would periodically throw his head back, his hands and knees squeaking forwards on the glass from the force of the pounding.  

“They’ve been at it for about thirty minutes, you should be proud of their stamina, Phil,” Stark said, waggling his eyebrows.  “Although I suppose plastic figurines don’t have a biological system, so the concepts of respiration and energy expenditure don’t really apply, which begs the question - what are the figurines getting out of this, and why is this going on for so long?”

“Just because you can’t imagine sex lasting more than thirty seconds doesn’t mean it’s not possible,” Natasha quipped from the bar.

“They do look like they are enjoying themselves,” Thor chipped in.

“How can you tell? Their faces are set to ‘kill’,”  Stark said.

“You can kind of…sense it,” Banner said softly.  “I know it’s intuition, Tony, but—“

As Banner continued to talk, Phil dared to look to his right, to catch a glimpse of Clint’s reaction.  His brows were furrowed, eyes hurt, and his lips were clenched in a frown.  His arms were folded so tightly against his chest, hands wrapped around his ribs as if to hold himself together.  

Phil quickly looked away.  In the meantime, Little Hawkeye had lowered himself to his elbows, and Little Phil was beginning to speed up his thrusts.  _Finally_ , he thought, _though finally  what? What was he going to say after all this?_   Stark began a chant of, “Let’s go Coulson, let’s go,” with two claps on each repetition, and Phil could almost physically feel himself leave his own body in mortification.  It was nice, not having to feel anything anymore. 

Little Phil’s thrusts stuttered, before both figures froze in what Phil supposed was a fairytale simultaneous orgasm, and they collapsed on their sides.  Little Phil slid one arm under Little Hawkeye’s head, the other wrapped around his waist, and they laid there for what Phil hoped was a very long, possibly eternal, post-coital nap.  The room fell into silence, and all eyes were suddenly on Phil, who suddenly realized how catastrophically stupid his excuse was going to sound coming out of his mouth.

“Uh—this is just—these figures—magic, Thor can explain, it could be random, no reason to assume, you know, because it would be absurd to conceive of Barton and myself as being, uh, together—“ 

Clint held himself more tightly, his eyes still laser-focused on the sleeping figures, as Phil rambled on. “—I mean, not that it would be distasteful, just that we are two professional agents with a good working relationship, it would be a stretch to extrapolate that to having any influence on this—this—event, such as it were.  No reason to extrapolate.  None at all.  Until we get more information, this is an act of magic, involving two random action figures.”  Thor looked at him sadly.  “What?” Phil snapped.  _What was he expecting, a grand public declaration?  No fucking way was he going to be bullied into one._

A tissue box appeared at his side.  “What—“

“If it’s okay with you, we’d like to do some tests on the figures, but for now if you want to take them back…” Banner suggested, prodding the box forward.  Stark was quietened, and was looking at Phil intently, as if trying to comprehend his psychological state, which Phil wouldn’t have known himself. Phil took three tissues, layered them together into a single sheet, gently wrapped it around the figures, and wasn’t that another kick in the balls, seeing Little Phil and Little Hawkeye together under white covers, like just another Sunday morning.  Clint’s eyes followed the figures until they were held against Phil’s chest, and he went back to staring at the bare coffee table.

“Banner, I’ll bring them down tomorrow,” Phil said, for lack of anything else to say.  He turned to leave and didn’t look back.  No use in torturing himself any further with images of Clint’s hurt reaction.

 

The figures were back in their respective positions on the bookshelf, arranged artfully in between Cap and Bucky, with heroic poses looking in the distance.  This was after they were undressed and wiped down with Purell, then re-dressed - although what Phil was going to do about the wet patch he found on Little Phil’s pants, he didn’t know, except maybe buy another figure and swap out the pants?  Then there would be a pantsless Little Phil, and he could never bring himself to throw it out. Or make a replica pair, but then the figure would not be a full original.  In fact, his first question was how the fuck did a plastic figurine create liquid to simulate a come stain, but then he figured at this point, what with the magical enchantment and all, that all bets were off.

“May I say, that was stupid, but but monumentally so,” Natasha said, laying on the bed with her legs dangling from the side, and her upper body propped up by her elbows.  “Depending on what happens next.”

“Next? There _is_ no next,” Phil replied, studiously adjusting figurine positions.  He turned Cap’s bent right arm a little further across his body to shift the shield from front-facing, to partially left-facing.  “Banner will monitor the figures for magical activity, and a magic practitioner will be contracted to remove the enchantment, if it doesn’t just go away on its own.” 

Natasha tilted her head, her lips pressed together and downturned.  “Do you think that maybe, just maybe, the magic was intended for someone else?”

He pulled Bucky’s legs a little further apart to strengthen the stance. “Yes, stray magic is the leading—“

“Not _stray_ , but it hit its intended target, if you took a different point of view.”  Phil stopped his fiddling and turned his head towards the bed.  Natasha raised her eyebrows and smirked.

“Clint knows better than to mess with magic,” Phil said after a brief silence.

“He _should_ know better, yes.  And you’re being stubborn now. Fine,” Natasha waved her hand dismissively, “you don’t have to say it aloud, we both know what that logical conclusion is, your insistence on unrequited boy feelings notwithstanding.” She pushed herself up and onto her feet, dragged a hand across Phil’s arm and padded out the bedroom door.  “Will you please put him out of his misery, at least?  One way or the other, I don’t care.  The next time he does something desperate in the name of true lust it might actually be dangerous.”

 

It certainly felt to Phil like JARVIS announced his arrival on Clint’s floor with audible satisfaction, and it only reinforced the feeling that he was being railroaded into decisions by everyone around him - everything, if he included JARVIS.  Well, he was adamant that this part, at least, would be conducted in the ultra-professional manner which Agent Phil Coulson was renowned.

He stepped off the elevator, and paused to collect himself before the suite entrance door.  He’d decided to stick to wearing his suit, to help keep a bit of emotional distance, for the both of them; this could be a very ugly debrief if his speech didn’t have the desired impact.  Speaking of which, he had written out a short two-hundred word statement artfully constructed to console Clint’s public distress, lightly reprimand him for dabbling with magic, and finally declare his affections.  Like a veteran pilot, Phil could do gentle landings in his sleep - he’d done it so often managing his assets, except the affections part was usually a statement of trust, but that was surely just a matter of swapping out words.  He was certain the SOP was structurally sound.

The door slid open, revealing a cagey Clint waiting for him, his arms folded and his back leaning against the breakfast bar.  Phil walked into the living room, and stopped a few feet away.  They stood there, time and space expanding between them, Phil with his hands folded in front of his body and Clint hanging his head in embarrassment, curled in upon himself, only daring to look up at Phil after the silence to mumble a chagrined, “Sorry to cause you so much trouble, sir.”  He then turned his head to stare out the floor-to-ceiling windows, and heaved a gusty sigh.

Phil turned his head towards the window also, and spoke as they both looked out across Manhattan.  

“I know you didn’t wish for it to happen the way it did, in such a public manner,” he began, with his most gentle voice.  “And it must have been distressing to have it happen in front of your teammates.  For my part, while I admit some inconvenience, rest assured it is nothing you need to be concerned with.”

Outside of Phil’s peripheral vision, Clint’s brows furrowed.

“What _is_ concerning is that you resorted to magic to…fulfil your wishes,” Phil continued on with the deliberate pause for effect,  “and I only ask you to please remember what we have fought and lost in the face of supernatural forces.”

Clint cringed, and murmured in a husky voice, “I remember.”

Phil waited for elaboration, and when none was forthcoming, he hummed. “And yet…?”

“My risk-benefit analysis was, uh, flawed, sir,” Clint laughed brokenly.  He then sobered, and looked at Phil.  “Let’s cut the bullshit.  You have a fair idea of what I did, but what’s with the kid gloves?  I’m pretty sure I ruined your precious action figures, and embarrassed you in front of everyone.  I’ve seen you tear strips off assets who’ve done less.  Why am I getting the sympathetic treatment?”  He narrowed his eyes, and Phil knew he was in serious danger of being derailed, _again_.

“What did you ask for, Clint?” Phil countered, crossing his arms.

Clint move his hands to his hips.  “What does it matter to you?”

“What scenario did you want to see played out in action?” Phil retorted, leaning his upper body forward.

“Why? You want all the disgusting details on the record?  Then let’s fucking make this an official debrief.”  Clint said, stalking towards Phil.

“Did you ask for it to be done to the figures, or did they just _‘_ make a mistake’?” Phil said the last part mockingly, standing firm as Clint pushed into his personal space.

“Who cares, ‘cause it was all a mistake anyway.  Go on,” Clint got right in Phil’s face, “tell me every which way I fucked up.”

They were locked in this moment, breathing in each other’s air, when Phil suddenly realized that his two-hundred word speech had been wrenched off-course, but only on a detour; here was his chance to transition into Part Three, though less smoothly than he had planned.

“I thought we looked good together,” he said simply.

 Clint froze, then jerked backwards.  “What?”

 “Little Hawkeye and Little Phil,” Phil continued, feeling his face break into a grin.  “They did everything I’ve dreamt of for years.  And they looked good doing it.  So I think we’d look good doing it, too.  They _are_ one-tenth scale replicas of us, anyhow.”

Clint grabbed Phil’s arms, visibly overwhelmed with joy.  “Little—what—I can’t—years? Really?” 

“Yes, really.  It had always been too hard to believe it ever would happen, not when you are so—so much more,” Phil said, still hesitant to elaborate.  However, Clint’s silent disapproval suggested no further elaboration was necessary.  “Yes, well, then at some point it was hard to believe I’d ever see you again,”  Clint wrapped his arms around him, lowering his chin to Phil’s shoulder and hugging for dear life, and Phil continued.  “And then I came back, even less than before, and it felt too ridiculous ask for anything more than having you around.”

“Fuck _more_ or _less_.  Fuck that.  If I could squeeze those thoughts out of you—“

“Tell me,” Phil said softly into Clint’s ear, sliding his hands up to Clint’s waist.  “What did you ask for?”

“I asked if they could show me what we would be like together.  The woman said ‘love potion’, but I said no, no magic on you or me, I just want to see what it would have been like, in another time or if things had been different.  I’ve thought about it for years, too, and some part of me was hoping that it would turn out awful, just so I could lay it to rest.”

“So you were expecting, what? A vision?”

Clint lifted his head from Phil’s shoulder, and reluctantly moved back a little to look Phil in the eye.  “Yeah, I mean I was asking for a hypothetical, like _It’s a Wonderful Life_ , right? But then, the action figures - Little Hawkeye and Little Phil, I guess,” he said, and Phil looked away blushing.  “Hey, no, sir—Phil, it’s cute.  Anyway, the toys were fucking _hot_ , and it just made me feel worse, it hurt, when it would never happen for real.  Tasha said they’d been moving around for a few days already.  Did they…in your room?”

“Yes, they did,” Phil replied, “though they kept the fireworks for their public performance.”

“Ah shit, I’m sorry, Phil,” Clint said with sincerity.  “I just—just wanted to know, y’know?”

“I know,” Phil said, gently rubbing Clint’s sides with his hands.  “I also know that asking you to be less reckless is like asking me to be less of a…control freak—“ he paused at Clint’s wordless protests,

“—Less rigid—“ At this, Clint sniggered. 

“—Less authoritative.  But maybe you could think of me, a little, before you go off doing what you do?  And please, no more magic! Between us both, haven’t we suffered enough?”

“Well, I _was_ thinking of you, and magic is the reason we got together—“ Clint quipped. Phil’s face crumbled, and Clint scrambled to say, “—no, no, I understand.  I can’t promise I won’t resort to it in a world-saving emergency, but now I’ve got you, my days of messing with magic are over.“  Clint ended the sentence with a soft smile.

“Yes, that’s no pressure on me at all,” Phil said dryly.

“I hope Little Clint and Phil are okay now.”

“I think they should be back to normal, wardrobe change aside.  I’m also certain they won’t be reanimating again, since they have appeared to have fulfilled their purpose.”

 “Yeah? And what would that be?”

Phil pulled Clint in for a kiss.

 

 

 


End file.
